You may watch some actor in the movies and read about some aspect currently affecting their lives in the latest magazines that are on sale each month but what do you really know about them? What do we really know about anyone? If you then go on to read their biography you be startled at such revelations that you find in between the pages and you may begin to understand their motivations and what affected and channeled their lives into the specific directions they took. We may learn what inspired them and what hardships they had to endure and we'll see what successes they achieved.
Pause for a moment and look at yourself, think back over your life and consider what ups and downs did you have in your life to get you here today?
What about Jazz, who is she really?
I cannot begin to understand how all the different people who drop by my pages may think about me. I'm sure some will think different things and perhaps emphasize certain attributes over others. Perhaps it's how I write when I'm presenting myself. I'm the one writing the script, directing the play and operating the lights. When you read a book does it not guide you to its conclusion? I wanted to write of myself in a neutral way showing that I was human with both good and bad times in my life but I guess there always was a personal bias. Who of us would write of ourselves with a purely ph7 neutral slant? It would to me feel to me as if I were writing with an emotionless and coldness of a scientific precision.
I blog here, I open my heart on many things in my life and I express my thoughts and offer up some of my feelings. I've said what's been happening in my life and to an extent I have revealed certain elements from the past. In my internet writing past I have been on message boards and was a regular in a couple of chat rooms and all these elements were different facets of me. I guess this blog has revealed the most about me but what is the real story behind Jazz? What secrets lay in that shadowed past and was the happy smiling Momo always as you perceive her now?
Well my world has changed now and so I'm going to reveal something that will possibly amaze you.
We can call it the story of Jazz and a lot of things you may know and some things you may not know or you may not even have guessed at and even then we can wonder is there any more to the story? Of course there is always more and even with what I'm about to say there are other peoples versions of it and other people's points of view, especially those of whom I mention. This is the concise edition and it is my edition and because there still have to be barriers in place some details are still obscured but I think this revelation will have your eyes wide open.
You know Jazz don't you! She's that mostly happy, clumsy, uncertain and honest girl. She's playful, respectful, a little impulsive, sensitive but strong and determined when she needs to be. She's a bit of a drama queen at times especially when her emotions get the better of her and the familiar blanket of confusion wraps around her shoulders.
My father is one of two sons. They each received an equal share of my grandfather's tool and machine parts factory which was moderately successful. However my Father had his own dream and to realize it he sold his half share to his brother and with the money from that sale he made his own imports and exports business.
My Mother was the younger of two daughters who had a dream of her own, a modest dream which was simply to have her own restaurant. When newly married, my Father made my Mother's dream come true. He bought a large property of three floors and a basement. The first floor became Mother's restaurant and as a family we all lived above it on the second floor. The ground floor became separate units that Dad rented out allowing each to have some underground space too. For a while one of the units became an eatery, an outlet of Mothers when the restaurant was closed during the early mornings. It did fairly well with the breakfast trade since we were quite close to Shibuya railway station and the office towers.
I was born and grew up in a busy environment with both of my parents running businesses. Looking back at it I don't believe that any of us, my three brothers and I were neglected. Father made time for us and so did Mother but I think we children did grow to rely on each other. Tokutaro, my eldest brother was and still is a natural leader and we all looked up to him. Today he is running dad's business as my Father enjoys a semi-retirement. Of course it is natural for the first born to be groomed into Dad's position. Dad has expanded his business interests and still has many things to do but at least he has more time for himself. Kenjiro, my immediate older brother was the creative one with ideas but he was also the quiet one. He usually contemplated things and then spoke when he felt sure he knew what it was he was going to say. He now has a good job with a large electronics company. As the girl, it was my job to look after Hiro, the baby of the family, which I did. But when he was asleep, I'd be out climbing trees and playing ball games with my older brothers.
I was quite often lost as a child and perhaps that hasn't changed much. I relied on my brothers a lot for direction and where Tokutaro was a natural leader, I was a natural follower but as I grew, I developed a sensitive and a rebellious nature, a nature that sometimes got me into trouble.
Mother was sick quite often and as teens we didn't fully appreciate the nature of her illness and of course we were never told of its seriousness. Still she carried on living her life, running her business and looking after all of us.
After my schooldays, I went off to Kyoto to study and it was there that I had my first relationship with a man, a Professor actually and I felt good about myself and proud that such a man was interested in me.
Yes of course I know now but I didn't know then that I was being used.
You can read about the professor
here in the encrypted text after the post. The password is Paul (case sensitive).
In my final year, a lot of free time was spent attending interviews and selection-boards trying to find a job for the next year and it was on my third or fourth one where I passed all three rounds of selections and received a job-promise after my graduation.
Proudly then in the following year I started work for Fuji TV. I worked in several departments during my time with them but I started in advertising and that is where I met Tetsuya. I was a brand new trainee and he was a handsome, charming and lovely man that many of the girls had an eye for. He was an executive and from all the girls working there he liked me. We dated a few times and I know you all ask why I would do such a thing if I was a lesbian and had known that I was this way even from school days.
At this time in my life I felt as if graduating was the only thing that I'd done that had made my Father proud. When I say that today I know I'm wrong, but at the time it seemed as if it were so. Father was a strict and focused man and he was definitely not tactile, at least not with his children. He was very aloof back then although he has changed and mellowed since his semi-retirement. It was on my graduation day where I saw pride on his face and in his words to me for the first time. I recall that I grew up thinking that he didn't love me. My grades in school were never as good as my brothers and my Father used to say things like he could at least hope I grew up pretty and have an established man want to marry me. My dad was ruthless in business and I see that same characteristic within all of my brothers. They have followed him and made good with their lives. I alone sometimes feel I was the weakest and that my brothers carried me. The only one thing I ever beat my brothers in was English. Even my baby brother was a better cook than me, something I tease him about to this day.
So yes, I wanted recognition in my parent's eyes, I wanted them to see I could do well and when Tety and I started dating officially and he met my parents, they immediately warmed to him and were greatly impressed with him and I was proud of him and happier still that my parents loved him.
And then I became pregnant and he and I were married.
That's shocked you hasn't it?
Jazz why did you never tell us you may wonder.
Wonder no more because I open a door now to a secret past.
He bought a lovely house in Sensokuike and life was good. We decorated and furnished our home together and he gave me clothes, jewelery and money to buy what we needed. I was introduced to and accepted by his friends. I considered myself very fortunate and I know I was the envy to many of my colleagues at work. My daughter Sumomo was born without complication on June 11 2002 and I had stopped working shortly before then to look after my husband, my baby and our home. It was in the days after her birth that things started to go wrong. He started coming home late more often than ever before, phone calls that he'd terminate if I came into the room and he got angry a lot and then he started to hit me if I opened my mouth. I just wanted peace and I learned quickly that if I went to my knees and apologized and blamed myself for everything he would become appeased. I was scared of him and I didn't want him to hurt me or my baby as his aggressiveness grew. When he was shouting, she'd cry and he'd swear at me and order me to shut her up. I would try to comfort her but if I failed I got slapped.
Why didn't I take Sumomo and run away you may ask.
I should have done that, I know! But it was because I felt that it would bring shame to myself and to my parents if I did that. I still loved Tety and there were good days and when he invited friends over or he would organize parties, they started out to be quite fun. Whenever we had guests he was a perfect gentleman. I really had hope that he would revert back to the man I loved. Sadly there were far too many bad days and it was around this time that I started drinking, I was drinking a lot and he actually encouraged me and drank with me. I was so desperate for his fond wishes and for him to be happy with me again. I wanted him to love me and appreciate me even if just a little for my devotion to him and for him not to hurt me anymore and I did whatever he asked of me. Some things he asked me to do were things which simply abhorred me but I did them to try to please him. Lewd sex acts, alcohol abuse and then drugs came into my life. In so trying to please him, to make us a happy family I lost myself. I became pregnant again and I began treatment for depression and my alcohol abuse. I couldn't say anything about the drugs but they knew. My second daughter Riko was born on October 27, 2004 but by this time it was too late for us as a family. My husband had applied for a divorce and he was already openly seeing other women. I tried to leave and take my children and my husband did something terrible to me. It was something so wicked and evil that even now I can't talk about it. As a result of that I ended up in hospital and was interviewed by the police. I had been accused of being a worthless woman, a bad mother with depression and drug dependency and of being an alcoholic. The hospital reports indicated everything that my husband had accused me of to be reasonably accurate and because of his position and reputation I lost everything. Testimony of the Nanny and of our friends seemed to confirm this too. He took custody of our children and started a relationship with the Nanny, the girl he'd hired to help us look after our home and children.
After I was discharged from the hospital I returned to my marital home only to find that she'd packed my belongings in my suitcases. I didn't even have the money for a taxi home and I had to ask the Nanny if I may use the telephone. She gave it to me quite smugly and stood close and listened as I phoned my Mother to ask if she would pay my taxi home and give me my room back. Of course she said yes and I returned home in disgrace.
I was a broken woman. As soon as I got home and I put down my cases, my Mother came to me and held me in her arms for a long time comforting me and reassuring me and then suddenly without warning, she collapsed to the floor. To this day I blame myself for that even though the doctors told us it was chronic fatigue. I had so wanted to please my Mother and make her proud of me and here I was, Momo the complete failure causing pain in others.
The Cancer was having its effect and my Father decided to relocate. He was going, along with Mother to Otaru, his boyhood home in Hokkaido and he moved his office base to the nearby city of Sapporo. Mother had so loved it there on previous visits, it was peaceful and on the coast with a beautifully fresh, invigorating air and had no city stresses. My mother became much better after they moved - a fact that pleased all of us. Hiro, my baby brother, took over the running of the restaurant. He did better than everyone had believed. I know my brothers and I were happily surprised by his achievements. Mother was so proud of him carrying on where she left off.
I had to receive a little rehabilitation therapy and counseling that would go on for another two years. I even failed in a bid to commit suicide during this time because I was so low, so lost and so depressed.
Then an old associate at Fuji who had moved companies offered me a position at Non-no magazine. It was a junior position but I did well enough to be promoted within six months of starting and become a full staff member. I started seeing Terutaka again as a close friend. He'd always been my friend but it was at this time in my life that I took him to my heart a little closer. I don't know if I was wrong or right or it was all a horrible circumstance. We started seeing each other and he made me feel a lot better, I was no longer worthless and he was amazing and I will always love him for everything he did to make me feel better. Despite precautions I became pregnant with his child but he couldn't marry me because my divorce was not finalized. My own health at this time was precarious and the mental suffering had a physical knock on effect, I became sick and I lost the baby and after that we failed as a couple. In the same month that I lost our baby my Mother died.
It seemed to me I was losing everyone that I'd ever cared for and my depression became worse and my medications had to be increased. I was also hooked again on Amphetamines, trying to find moments to smile. I was offered time off from work to attend Mothers funeral but I only took one week. Kenjiro drove Hiro and me to Otaru. We met Tokutaru there who lives in Sapporo. Everyone seemed so strong and I alone was constantly crying but I'm a girl and I'm allowed to cry. Dad never liked to see me cry and would always send me to another room to clean myself up but he never did at this time. I needed to let it out, let it all out.
Again I felt lost and I did what I always do, I hid myself behind a mask. You can't see the real me I thought, you'd just see the unmoving and immobile features of the mask. With such loss prevalent I went back to work because if I'd been left to brood alone at home, I really don't think I would be here today.
In one of those strange twists that Kama plays in our lives, the new project of city nightlife I was involved in at work had me choose a couple of theaters at random and write about the plays. I looked in the local newspaper theater guide for my first visit and 'a comedy of errors' seemed to scream at me. And that is how I met Hitomi, who was acting in that play and if the six years prior to that had been painful and dark, Hitomi has brought light and love and support to me in the six years since.
As our relationship grew I really opened up like a flower in the sunshine. She was amazing. She made me feel wanted and loved and she made me feel special and she restored my faith. I threw away the medication and the therapy sessions because I no longer needed them. Embodied in her was all I ever needed and I was alive again.
She knows everything about my life and has accepted me for who I am. So many people can go through a lifetime and not meet that one person who is so special. If you have met your special person then I'm so pleased for you.
I would go through all that pain and torture again if it meant that it was the only way that I could keep Hitomi in my life. That's how much she means to me. My divorce finalized in early 2006 and also that year I was officially declared cured of depression and drug abuse. I made an appeal for my children but I lost it and could only have them one weekend a month and the first few times had to be supervised. In 2007 Hitomi moved in with me and despite reservations I started to become open about my sexuality. I didn't have to be with a man in any sense of expected relationship. Finally I was with someone that I really cared for and who really cared for me and I suddenly felt free from so many burdens. I no longer felt lost. It seemed as if I had finally found myself.
On the days that I was allowed to see my children, it really hurt me that my children saw me as a visiting aunt more than their real and biological mother. It took some time for them to realize who I was and that Tety's wife (he married the nanny soon after our divorce) was their step-mother.
Tety and I have met several times after all of this. We had to when I came for and took back my babies but he's also met me on other pretexts, usually of a business orientation. He's flirted with me and he even wanted an affair with me once. I called him a worm but I forgive him for everything he ever did to me and he has been a good father to my children, I can't deny that.
On Thursday night last week my Father arrived with the news that Tety has been imprisoned for some pretty bad doings, things that I should not speak of here and subsequently I have been awarded full custody of my children. I had to show my heath reports and prove my financial ability to maintain my children.
That dear readers is the real story of Jazz's early days and no matter how idealistic or philosophic I wrote in times past or how much honesty I presented (even if veiled), I was weak and I could never face up to the shame and disgrace that he made me feel.
I wrote as if he and I had never really happened, at least not as intense as it was and I would not even directly mention my children here, it was my defense mechanism because I just could not open myself about that episode in my life.
Do my few remaining posts of this blog from
2005 and
2006 look more understandable now?
Perhaps not as they are still veiled with symbolism but you can easily see the depressing negativity and bitterness contained within them. Now that my children are back and safe with me I can finally feel strong enough to reveal the hell that I went through.
I have had a wonderful life since I've been with Hitomi but our lives are irrevocably changed now. I have asked Hitomi to stay with me and to help me raise my children and she held me in her arms and said that she wanted it as much as I did. She loves the children and they have taken her to their hearts.
Now it's finding a new school, moving then into our home and even buying more Christmas presents! Oh and they need new clothes and new shoes, especially winter boots. My stars they grow so quickly!
Yes, I am a Mother and I am going to be the best Mother I can possibly be. Hitomi supports me.
No matter what I hid, I was genuinely shocked at that soothsayer and hoped beyond hope that he could possibly have meant this moment. This is my day everyone. A day that I could only have dreamed of earlier and here it is here and now as I live it with a smile so wide and tears of happiness flowing along my cheeks.
I don't think I'll continue this blog, at least not like this. I am no longer the carefree whimsical girl of anyone's imaginings. Today I am no longer that weak worthless woman. I am somebody, somebody who found a strength, somebody with a family who love me despite all the mistakes I've made in my life, I'm somebody who has needed support and the help of her family and friends and somebody who is finally able to stand on her own again, I'm somebody with two children who need me, who need both Hitomi and I.
To all the people who ever helped me especially when I needed it the most, I sincerely thank you. Because it was you that helped me make it to here today, to my best day ever.
Special thanks have to go to my Hitomi, my Father and my late Mother, my brothers, Terutaka and to "G".
Thanks to our wonderful legal system for finally bringing justice.
Thank you everyone who came to read me, and those who offered me prayers, luck, advice and comments. I wish each and every one of you my best wishes and good luck for the future.
Thank you everyone.